Can't Stop the Signal
by Hawki
Summary: Oneshot: It doesn't look good on your resume when you fail in your job so poorly that the boy you fall for is the one who was working with a Nerazim saboteur who brings the Death Fleet down on a secret research lab.


**Can't Stop the Signal**

Ida Briggs had never been on a destroyer before.

Scratch that, she'd never been on any kind of warship before, period. Until two days ago, her experience with starships had been with personnel transports. The type that brought people to and from Spearpoint Base, and other locations just as isolated. The types of places where security guards such as herself could walk around, talk, pop a cold one, and maybe arrest a worker or two who got rowdy. Places that most definitely weren't infiltrated by protoss, razed to the ground by protoss, and aided and abetted by cowards who'd sell out their own species, allowing those things to happen in the process.

But it had happened, and happened under her watch at that. Hence why she was now sitting in a room on the _Spensa_; a Umojan destroyer that had answered her hails within the Aeneas system. To her right was a door, a red light shining by the key card reader. To her left, a plexiglas window that looked out into the vacuum of space. Around her, grey walls bereft of any kind of ornamentation. The marines outside had called it a waiting room, as if she wasn't a fekking security guard who knew an interrogation room when she saw it. As if she hadn't done this dog and pony show a hundred times. Hence, when the door opened, and a pair of officers walked in, she knew to keep her gaze downward, and her hands out.

She told herself that she hadn't done anything wrong. Which was true. Unfortunately, she hadn't done everything right either.

"At ease Briggs, you don't have laser vision."

She looked up at one of the officers – the one she recognised as Captain Waqoob. "Excuse me Sir?"

"You're staring at the desk like you want to bore through it."

In spite of everything, Ida cracked a smile. "What if I did? Heck, what if I didn't stop with the floor?"

"Well then you'd be on C deck. If you kept going, you'd be on D deck."

"And then in space?"

"Maybe. Or we'd have shot you by then."

Her smile faded. Waqoob wasn't smiling either. He sat down and put a data pad on the desk between them, while the other officer leant against the wall behind him. Ida glanced at her, and given the way the woman glared at her…

_Oh shit._

She knew who that woman was. _What _she was. Question was, did she know that she knew? Most likely, all things considered.

"I've read your report."

She looked back at Waqoob, currently scrolling down text on the pad.

"Nasty stuff, by your accounts."

"I…" She cleared her throat. "I'd have thought by all accounts."

"Well, considering that most of the people you were able to save off Spearpoint were children, their accounts are limited." He stopped scrolling, and moved his fingers to enlarge the text. "They'll be taken care of, don't worry."

"I'm not worried," Ida murmured. "We're Umojans. We look after her own."

"So the official line goes. But what I _am _worried about is you." Waqoob span the pad around so that Ida could read her own report. "Care to guess why?"

She frowned. Her left hand gripped her jumpsuit's leggings. Her right formed into a fist. Her eyes widened, as she saw the text. That point where she was informed that a protoss had rampaged through Spearpoint's science lab. The point where she'd been told that a boy she'd begun to fall for had aided the monster. That point in time where, fighting back tears, she'd told him to go before she filled him full of holes.

Not that her report mentioned the whole tears/holes thing. But even so…

"A boy arrives at Spearpoint," Waqoob said. "You get close to him after the base's first murder."

"Sir, regulations in Umojan Security prohibit relationships between security staff only. There's no prohibitions against non-sec individuals."

"I know the regulations Ms. Briggs, I used to work in U-Sec myself." Waqoob leant back in his chair. "But nevertheless, you're paid to do a job. Part of that job involves vetting people. In places like Spearpoint, that job's more important than anything, because turns out when there's top secret weapons labs within the Protectorate, we prefer to keep them under wraps." He spun the pad back and scrolled up in the text. "You barely mention this Caleb before the confrontation outside the lab."

"And?" Ida whispered.

"And I'm wondering if there's anything else you're not telling me."

Ida glanced at the woman in the corner. She just stood there. Watching. Waiting.

"Well?" the captain asked.

Ida looked back at him and sighed. "I know how this goes," she murmured.

"Excuse me?"

"Spearpoint's gone, courtesy of a protoss who infiltrated it, and a bloody fleet who vapourized it from above. There's only a handful of survivours, and I'm the only one who made it who can speak with any authority as to the events. So. The first option is that this gets pinned on me, and I get to enjoy retirement on some barren moon, while within the Protectorate, I'm remembered as the woman who left the gates of Spearpoint unlocked."

"Spearpoint had a laser fence, there was nothing _to_ unlock," Waqoob murmured.

"Second option is that this is genuine, and you're trying to see if there's anything I could have done differently." She leant forward. "Well, there is. I fekked up. I got close to the person who let that alien slike into the base, and we paid the price. Dozens of people dead, including three Shadowguard (she glanced at the woman in the corner), plus over two-hundred when the Tal'darim attacked." She leant back in her chair. "Do I regret it? Yes. Could I have done things differently? Yes. Did some kind of lingering attraction make me let Caleb go rather than shooting him?"

She didn't say anything. No-one did.

"Yes," Ida said eventually. She leant back in her chair and rubbed her eyes. "God help me, yes."

She wasn't going to cry. She was too angry for that, and her eyes still smarted from lack of sleep. Waqoob might have an idea as to how angry she was, but he was just seeing the surface of it. Anger had bubbled in her for the last two days. As she'd left Aeneas, seeing it burn under the protoss's weapons. Had still bubbled as she'd led her ship into the depths of the Aeneas system, hoping, praying that the Tal'darim wouldn't come after the stragglers. It had bubbled as she'd tended to the children, it had bubbled as she watched the _Spensa _emerge from warp space, and now, one docking tube, one report, and one interrogation room later, it was still bubbling.

Waqoob looked at the woman in the corner. She gave him a small nod. He looked back at Ida, and without any hint of emotion, said, "I think we're done here."

"We?" Ida murmured.

Waqoob got to his feet. "We, as in, you." He extended a hand towards her. "Take it easy Briggs. Whatever you did or didn't do on Aeneas, you got its survivours to us. That's something."

Ida gingerly shook the hand. "So what next?" she asked.

"What next isn't up to me."

"No? Then is it up to her?" Ida looked at the woman in the corner. The woman looked at her, a touch of fire in her eyes.

"Commander Halsey?" Waqoob asked. "She's only a-"

"She's a Shadowguard, and she's been teeping me from the moment she entered the room."

A heavy silence hung in the cold, recycled air. Waqoob stared at Ida. The woman did as well, but with something other than fury.

"That's…an interesting idea," Waqoob said. "But I assure you, Commander Halsey has-"

"Captain, I saw three Shadowguards land at Spearpoint. I was in their company when I reported to my commander. I know a thing or two about teeping." She rubbed the back of her head. "Little tingle back there, you know?"

No-one said anything.

"And unless you knew from her that I was telling the truth, you wouldn't have concluded this meeting so quickly."

Waqoob cleared his throat. "Ms Briggs, your intuition is-"

"Correct." The woman stepped forward. Immediately, Ida noticed a shift in the dynamic between the two. "Halsey," if that was her real name (and of course it wasn't) had taken command. Whatever Waqoob's power in the Umojan Navy, Shadowguards had right of veto over him.

"Sure you're not a psych yourself?" Halsey asked.

Ida met her gaze. "Positive."

"Hmm. Shame. Maybe then you could have been sent to Aeneas, and three of my brothers wouldn't have been slaughtered."

Ida's gaze softened. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be," Halsey grunted. "I'm sure the xenos who killed them isn't."

"Well, considering that she's likely dead…" Ida looked at Waqoob. "Any word on the Death Fleet? I mean, I saw a mothership detonate as I moved past Aeneas's third Lagrange point, and-"

"That will be all, Briggs."

"I'm just-"

Halsey held up a hand. "Go," she said, looking at Waqoob.

Ida looked at the captain. The captain looked at Halsey, before looking back at Ida, and glaring as he did so. Finally, he looked back at the Shadowguard. "Off the record, is that it?" he murmured.

"Everything's off the record."

"Yeah. Of course it is." Waqoob headed for the door, flashed his key card, and stood back as it opened with a hiss. He lingered in the doorway and looked at Ida. "From one former U-Sec officer to another? You fekked up. Royally."

Watching the captain leave, Ida didn't contest the point. What she did do, however, was look at Halsey. "_Former_, U-Sec?" she asked.

"Almost certain at this point."

Ida collapsed back in her chair. It could be worse, she told herself. She could be dead. But in the knowledge that a world could have existed where Spearpoint wasn't destroyed, where she'd found out Caleb from the start, where the protoss had never shown up at all…her still breathing felt like a consolation prize right this moment.

"Funny, isn't it?" Halsey asked.

Ida looked up at her. The woman had walked over to the window, staring out into space. "What is?" she asked.

Halsey chuckled. "It's an open secret right now, so, sure. Why not?"

Ida didn't say anything.

"We spend over a decade trying to make contact with the protoss," Halsey murmured. "Over ten years of trying to make contact through means other than guns and laser swords. Ten. Fekking. Years. And forty-eight hours ago, one of their number makes contact through our own communications system and brings the wrath of God down on us."

Ida, her hands sweating, murmured, "I don't think God burnt Spearpoint to the ground."

Halsey grunted.

"Also, is that confirmed? She used Spearpoint itself to call the Tal'darim Death Fleet?"

"Confirmed as close as possible," Halsey murmured. She looked at Ida, leaning back against the wall, before grunting. "Might be slow on the uptake when it comes to boys, Briggs, but even I don't need to tell you that things could go south very quickly."

Ida didn't say anything. But she thought-

"Oh, you don't get it?"

_Don't teep me, _Ida thought.

"Well, I have one word for you. Vardona. Heard of it."

Ida glared at Halsey. "Course I've heard of it. Everyone's heard of it. The Tal'darim attacked a Dominion world, and tens of thousands died before they were repelled."

"All true. What you might not know is that the reason they did so was because of a feud they had with the Defenders of Man?"

"The DOM?" Ida asked. "That rebel group?"

"Also true. One group of miscreants who bring down the wrath of xenos on a Dominion world because of their mere presence, damn the consequences. Tell me, Ms. Briggs. If the Death Fleet doesn't stop at Aeneas, if the Tal'darim decide that we all need to pay the price for daring to develop weapons that might harm them…what then? What happens if they keep going?" She paused, before whispering, "what happens if they head for Umoja?"

Ida didn't say anything. Visions filled her head. Umoja. The fleet. Its defence platforms. The knowledge that if even a protoss splinter group like the Tal'darim decided it needed to burn…then there was no guarantee that the Protectorate could stop them.

"Nice," Halsey murmured. "Needs more fire and brimstone though."

Ida got to her feet. "I told you not to read my mind."

"And as a Shadowguard who's no longer interrogating you, I'll oblige," Halsey said. She walked over to the door and opened it the same way Waqoob did. "But I should tell you, ma'am. I don't see this ending well. Not for you." She sighed. "Not for any of us."

Ida said nothing. Not as the marines walked in. Not as Halsey told them to take her to her quarters. Not as she walked out into the corridor, and was marched down it.

And not as she entered her assigned quarters, and was left alone with her thoughts. Her fears.

Her regrets.

* * *

_A/N_

_So after reading the final issue of _Survivors_, it occurred to me that there's a bit of irony in the plot. The Umojan Protectorate spends all this time trying to contact the protoss, only to be ignored, but the Nerazim gets a message to the Death Fleet via a Umojan satellite and they come running immediately. Christ, to think all Umoja needed to do was to get a psychopath in one of their bases and have her type. Anyway, drabbled this up._

_Also calling that if the _Scavengers/Survivors _series is continued, Ida's going to be the protagonist. I mean, who's left at this point?_


End file.
